Plans are advancing for the construction of a 500-megawatt solar and battery storage facility in southern Arizona.
The project will go up outside of the small town of Three Points, some 26 miles to the southwest of Tucson, and is being developed by a company called Three Points Solar, which is a subsidiary of the Madrid-based company Repsol.
Founded in 1927, Repsol is both an energy and petrochemical company and ranked by Forbes as one of the largest such companies of its kind in the world.
As envisioned, the project is to be built on a 5,700-acre site, with 2,000 of those acres given over to the actual solar panels. The company has said that upon completion, the project will generate enough electricity to power up to 124,000 homes.
Three Points Solar will be leasing the site from the Arizona State Land Trust.
The project has prompted no small amount of opposition from area residents, as well as a group called the Open Space Alliance, who are concerned about its size. Others have complained that the project will transform a swath of open desert space along the Ajo Highway into columns of solar panels.
Representatives of the company have held one public input meeting on the project and are planning to hold more soon.
Plans currently call for construction on the project to launch roughly one year from now, working towards a general completion date in 2029.
August 21, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
